Panthers T20 slump

By Justin Robertson
NOT a lot has changed for the Dandenong Panthers since the Christmas break, as they’ve succumbed to their fourth consecutive Twenty20 loss, this time at the hands of Northcote during Premier Cricket’s country round under lights at Barooga Reserve on Saturday.
On the back of Theo Doropoulos’s scintillating 128 not out from a mere 67 balls, the former Western Australian state player cut and pulled the Panthers attack all over the park and led the Dragons to 1/184 in convincing style from their 20 overs.
In reply the Panthers could only manage 142, with Michael Sweeney throwing the bat around for 53 from 27 balls and skipper Darren Dempsey hit an unbeaten 32 from 34 balls.
Played under lights in warm conditions and with a lighting outfield Dempsey cited three costly overs that were plundered for more than 20 runs as his team’s major downfall, but paid tribute to Doropoulos’s whirlwind dig.
“I actually thought we batted and fielded pretty well, but were just beaten by Theo’s knock in the end,” Dempsey said.
“The T20’s have been pretty good to us the last couple of years, but for whatever reason this year, we just haven’t got it together.”
The Panthers did not manage to win a game during the four-week T20 rounds and finished in 17th position on the T20 table. Despite a woeful record in the shortest form of the game this season, Dempsey is adamant his charges can turn around their slump when it comes to the two-day format.
“I certainly don’t think we are in bad form, but I think we need to improve a little bit and get some even contributions from players,” he said. “ I think that’s the mindset we’ll be focusing on at training this week.”
This week Footscray-Edgewater becomes an important game, with five teams now hot on Dandenong’s trail – a loss would send them tumbling back into the pack.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate that our bad T20 form hasn’t really cost us our position on the ladder too much,” Dempsey said.
“It cost us a 12-point buffer which we could have maintained, but we are second and still fairly well placed five games to go – we win two of those we’ll probably play finals, we win three we’ll most definitely play finals.”
Dempsey said, for this week’s match against Footscray, the Panthers look slightly stronger on paper and hold slightly better two-day form and will be looking to lock away some vital premiership points.
“We just need to get back to normality and have our batsmen bat for long periods and not have to worry about scoring and have our bowlers bowl more than four overs,” he said.
“We have three reasonably winnable games and two tough ones coming up, but it really is an even ladder and can chop and change very quickly.”